


The Strategist and the Redhead; Part 6

by ignis_scientia_estrogen_brigade



Series: The Strategist and the Redhead [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 08:42:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11181135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignis_scientia_estrogen_brigade/pseuds/ignis_scientia_estrogen_brigade
Summary: This series of fics features an OC that originated from a brief headcanon I wrote in the early days of The Ignis Scientia Estrogen Brigade; they were written out of chronological order, so I apologize for any inconsistencies you might happen to come across. Part 6 is (IMO) my crowing achievement in smut writing and I will likely never deliver anything as good as it ever again. (╥_╥)





	The Strategist and the Redhead; Part 6

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place before the start of in-game events. And no, the redhead doesn't have a name. Sorry. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Is it me, or is the table lower than it was yesterday?”

Two spectacled eyes peer out above a Crown City Chronicle at the redhead seated across the breakfast table. “Is it?”

“I think it is.” As a matter of fact, she  _knows_  it is; he wouldn’t be entertaining her company if she wasn’t perceptive about these things. It was exactly the type of acumen that had originally caught Ignis’ attention in the first place—that, and the clipped regional accent they both shared, although their mutual love of caffeinated beverages might’ve helped her cause more than a little.

He sips at his Ebony and resumes perusing the current events section of his newspaper. “How peculiar.”

“Indeed.  _Quite_  peculiar.” The miraculously diminishing table wasn’t the only thing of notable peculiarity that morning; the way his hand lingered on hers when he brought out her own mug of Ebony seemed rather unusual for the habitually aloof Crownsguard, since about the only time Ignis Scientia dared to ever lay an affectionate finger on her was when she had him cornered in the bedroom with his trousers already around his ankles.

She polishes off her breakfast before pushing her plate aside. “Was it to your liking?” he inquires from behind his paper. “I fear the Regaltrice eggs weren’t as fresh as the shopkeeper at the farmer’s market claimed they were.”

“It was delicious, thank you.” She then reaches for her cup of coffee and hesitates, swirling the last remnants of dark liquid around the bottom of it. “Remind me again, Darling—when did you say you set out for Altissia?”

His emerald eyes dart across the table for the briefest of moments before returning to his paper. “Three weeks.”

“And how long will you be away?”

“It depends. Could be months.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Is that a problem?”

She suppresses the urge to sigh, and instead drains the last of her Ebony to conceal the grimace on her face. “Of course not.”

Finally, he sets his newspaper down on the table and looks over at her in earnest. “Speak your mind. It’s best not to keep secrets.”

Her cheek twitches, and a tendril of bitterness licks the inside of her throat. “Isn’t that what we’re good at?”

His features remain impassive. “Are you unhappy with our arrangement?”

Of course, their  _arrangement_. It was hardly fair of her to be resentful about it; she was the one, after all, who had originally laid down the parameters of their accordance when they began their tryst. No intimate contact outside of the previously agreed upon hours of midnight and four, no affectionate monikers or diminutive terms of endearment, and—perhaps most importantly—no falling in love. Feelings would only compromise the benefits of their affair, since the man might die at any given moment; they both could, for that matter, if the rumors of ulterior motives surrounding the Imperial peace talks were to be believed.

But somewhere along the way, something had changed. Somewhere between that first lustful night together and the present day, they had taken to calling each other  _Darling_ ; even now, she was bending her own rules by remaining at his apartment this late into the morning, sampling his new omelet recipe and ruminating over the significance of his lingering touch.

Ultimately, somewhere along the way she had grown rather  _fond_  of the strategist. “My apologies,” she says sullenly. “I didn’t mean to complicate the matter. I’m sure you have much and more on your mind right now.”

He stares at her blankly for a long moment, and then suddenly glances out the kitchen window. “It’s rather quiet this morning, wouldn’t you say?”

It’s a diversion tactic, and she knows it; it wouldn’t be the first time he’s used it against her to his advantage, although generally it comes in the form of a cheeky  _I could go for an Ebony about now_ comment when he’s parrying her lance in the Citadel’s fitness center. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“I wonder if the city is diverting traffic in anticipation of the Imperial detail.” He pushes back from the table and rises from his seat. “Another cuppa?”

“Please.” She sets her empty mug aside and swallows the last of her antipathy; three weeks is not a long time, and choosing to stay irritable at him will only make it pass by more quickly.

He nods once and disappears into the kitchen; her attention drifts out the window and she narrows her eyes. “Now that you mention it, it is rather quiet. Almost  _too_  quiet.”

“Most intriguing,” his voice calls out from the other room.

“It’s awfully early to be rerouting the highways. The chancellor isn’t even expected to arrive until the day of the talks—what was his name again?”

His isn’t gone but a heartbeat; then he is back by her side and refilling her cup with freshly brewed Ebony. “I don’t recall.”

But she isn’t looking at him, and instead her eyes remain fixed outside the window. It’s only after she gives up trying to resolve the paradox of the ominously silent roads that she finally peers up at him; when she does, it takes her mind half a second to register that he is standing before her wearing absolutely nothing at all.

It’s a good thing she hadn’t taken a sip of her coffee  _before_  processing that fact, lest she spurt hot brown liquid all over the breakfast table. “Goodness,” she breathes.

There are some within the palace walls who whisper that Ignis Scientia was born without a fundamental understanding of humor; the redhead would argue that most people simply haven’t spent enough time around him to witness his masterful skills in the art of deadpan.  “Something troubling you, Darling?” he asks, the faintest of grins touching his lips.

As hard as she tries, she is unable to contain her smile. “And what, might I inquire, is the meaning of this little exhibition?”

He sets the coffee pot down on the the kitchen counter and leans over for a chaste kiss. “You seem preoccupied with the details of my excursion. Thought maybe I could offer to help take your mind off things.”

She can’t quite stop herself from ogling at the eyeful of naked flesh hovering inches from her face. “How in the world did you get out of your clothes so quickly? I didn’t even hear your keys jingle in your pocket.”

“It’s a mystery, isn’t it?” He then reaches over and moves to unfasten the buttons of her blouse. “Speaking of, I daresay you appear to be wearing far too many articles yourself.”

His fingers move swiftly, and soon he is liberating her of her garment and discarding it on the window sill. “Don’t be absurd,” she says, but the sensation of his lips brushing against the crook of her neck leaves her hoarse. “If you aren’t planning on kicking me out of your apartment anytime soon, let’s at least move into the bedroom.”

“What for?” He stops his light caresses briefly to pluck her mug of Ebony from her hand before drawing her upright out of her chair and guiding her body against the breakfast table. “There’s a perfectly flat surface here we can use.”

“Be serious,” she admonishes, as he pushes his bare chest to hers. “This table won’t hold my weight, let alone both of ours.”

“Of course it will. I reinforced the brackets last night when I lowered the legs.”

_“Lowered the…?”_  Confusion clouds her mind, but the gentle way he rakes his teeth along her sternum causes her to lose her train of thought entirely. One strong hand encircles her back and tackles the clasp of her undergarment with the precision of an expert locksmith, and suddenly both of their torsos are free from obstruction and his lips are pressed against hers.

“Is this all right?” he whispers, his fingers gliding lightly over her left breast. “You know how I hate to be a bother.”

Her eyelids flutter shut when he replaces his fingers with his tongue. “Does it look like I’m bothered?”

“In a sense.”

“Do you always talk this much in the mornings?”

He snorts softly against her nipple before kneeling, and resumes his slow journey down toward her hips. “Point taken.”

He then traces the waistband of her pants with inquisitive curiosity, coaxing the button loose and tugging gently on her slacks until she is free from the constraining accoutrement and is sitting on the breakfast table with her toes dangling off the floor. There is still the matter of her underwear in need of tending to, but the strategist is nothing if not  _strategic_  in his approach; with a finesse only an authority in the field of daggers could master, Ignis manages to strip her of her smallclothes while simultaneously throwing her legs over each of his shoulders.

Her hands immediately move to clutch at his tawny hair, and she lets out a gasp as he nuzzles the tip of his nose against the most private and intimate part of herself. But he doesn’t linger in one spot for long, and instead teases the insides of her thighs with light kisses interspersed with gentle nips of his teeth. When her trembling fingers reach for his face and knock his spectacles askew, he pauses a moment to readjust them.

“Leave them off,” she says. “I like you better without them.”

“I can hardly see a thing even with them on,” he replies, and continues his exploration.

She grips the edge of the table hard and silently curses the Six when his tongue strokes grow positively agonizing. “There’s nothing down there worth looking at. I can’t believe you’re willing to subject yourself to the view in such…  _anatomical_ detail.”

“On the contrary,” he murmurs. “It’d be a shame to lose what’s left of my sight when the scenery is as breathtaking as this.”

She laughs aloud at his attempts at flattery, but in truth, the sentiment warms her heart; he never once showed the slightest ounce of timidness around her body, and was clearly more than a little experienced at pleasuring a woman, if the magical fingers he was now pressing inside of her were any indication. She may not have even been his only paramour at the moment—exclusivity was never explicitly touched upon in their agreement—but it doesn’t matter, because her breath is growing ragged with each achingly slow lap of his tongue.

“Darling,” she pants, her eyes pressed closed, her fingernails digging into the taut muscles of his shoulders. “I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

He ignores her appeals for leniency and maintains a steady and rhythmic cadence; his fingers are moving faster now, his thumb rigid against her nub, shifting away for the briefest of instants only to be replaced by his strong tongue. She can no longer suppress the moans clawing their way up her throat as the pressure in her abdomen builds, and she bites down on the inside of her cheek so hard she can taste blood.

“Please,” she begs, her legs tightening around his neck. “You have to stop—“

But he doesn’t stop, and instead doggedly presses onward; he has his free hand gripped around her thigh, feeling her tendons clenching, sensing her heartbeat quickening, because she knows that as a strategist he is intimately aware of even the slightest changes in her body chemistry, and won’t yield to her request until he has pushed her to the other side of ecstasy.

She doesn’t have to wait long for him to conclude the torture. The first crest of her orgasm is already firing through every nerve ending of her body, and a cry escapes her lips with each subsequent wave. For a long moment, the only thing she can hear is the sound of her pulse screaming in her own ears; as the pounding in her heart subsides, and the blood returns to the knuckles she has flexed tightly around his arms, she opens her eyes to the view of Ignis drawing himself up to his full height.

Another, more arrogant lover might pat himself on the back and make some wry quip about successfully bringing her to climax; Ignis, on the other hand, is evidently content to leave his ego in check, because his only reaction to her trembling is to cover her slightly parted lips with his own. The flavor of her herself on his tongue sends her mind reeling and drives her to deepen their kiss, her hands gripping urgently at his spine and her legs wrapped tighter than Malboro tentacles around his slender hips.

But he appears to be in no hurry to indulge in his own pleasure, and instead tilts her back gently against the table’s surface before moving down to drag his mouth over the curves of her abdomen. Her hand reaches for his face only to get tangled up in his lenses again; this time, he finally discards his spectacles once and for all, tossing them over his shoulder without nary a second glance.

“Don’t be so flippant,” she scolds, although with the way his caresses are causing her back to arch upward, her reprimanding doesn’t quite meet her voice. “I should hate to be the reason you broke your glasses.”

“I’ve got another pair,” he says, his hot breath utterly electrifying against her skin.

It’s only when he leans into the table that she realizes why exactly he lowered it in the first place; her body immediately begins to ache when she feels his erection pressed against  _just_  the right spot between her thighs, and were she in a more coherent state of mind, she might’ve complimented him on his impressive ingenuity. But her brain is mired in the nebula of her own desire, and the singular reoccurring thought currently consuming her attention is the longing to feel his warmth inside of her.

If she hoped her sensual agony would end with her own climax, however, she is sorely mistaken; the strategist simply bides his time, nipping tenderly at her belly, tracing the outline of her breasts leisurely with his tongue, grasping the back of her knees firmly as her body begins to writhe beneath him. When she is forced to press her hand to her mouth to stifle her moans, he pries her fingers gently away from her face and laces them in his own.

“You best let go,” she says in a low voice, “unless you enjoy hearing me shout loud enough to alert the neighbors.”

“Music to my ears,” he purrs.

So she concedes to his restraints, because if Ignis Scientia wants to listen to the sounds of her euphoria, then she is more than happy to oblige. His lips are at her neck now, the stippled texture of his freshly-shaven jaw brushing up against her collarbone and eliciting a sharp hiss from her lungs. Her legs clench around his waist, but he resists being drawn in any closer, for this is a test of wills: her urgency to be fulfilled against the stalwart discipline that has come to define him.

She breaks first.  _“Ignis,”_  she whispers, “don’t make me beg for this.”

It is, perhaps, rather unfair of her to resort to such unsophisticated tactics; there are far more clever ways of getting him to do her bidding, but the man has so few weaknesses, and she knows that the mere hint of his name on her lips will impair the rational side of his brain long enough for primal instinct to take over. And besides—if he teases this out any longer, he’ll have a permanent stain of her fluids on the surface of his breakfast table to deal with afterward.

Her imploring has its desired effect; his previously tranquil expression flickers for a moment, and his hands tighten around her fingers. She watches as the wheels turn in his mind, turning, turning, always turning, always in control, until his features abruptly darken and she can see in his eyes that the urge to  _give_  has now been replaced by the impulse to  _take_.

He doesn’t speak a word; he simply presses his mouth hard against hers, and moves to pin her wrists above her head with one hand. His other is already between both their legs, testing her readiness, testing  _his_  readiness, before suddenly and without warning he is plunging his searing heat into the folds of her warm flesh.

She says his name again, but it’s not a whisper like before; this time, it’s a cry of elation, loud enough for the neighbors to hear, loud enough for King Regis seated on his throne behind the palace walls two miles away to hear, loud enough for the Astrals themselves to look down from their omniscient plane of existence and take note. For there is no feeling in all of Eos quite like two bodies joining to become one, and no rapture greater—in this world or the next—than that offered by one Ignis Scientia.

His response is more reserved than hers, for she knows Ignis is a quiet lover; the flexing of his hand against her wrists and the lowering of his forehead to her chest is the only indication that there is a battle raging on inside his mind. Lose himself in her warmth, and this brief moment of exaltation will pass; wait too long, and he’ll begin to overthink things. The line they dance along is razor-thin, but they’ve done it together a hundred times or more, and she tilts her hips up against his to signal the beginning of their lascivious waltz.

He finally releases her wrists and drops his hands to her waist, burying himself ever deeper into her walls. She follows his lead and braces herself against his movements, stretching back and relishing in her newfound freedom by raking a loving hand through his feathery hair. His eyes are closed in concentration and his lips never leaves hers, except to suppress a carnal growl every now and again. Their bodies find a mutual harmony—just as they always do—and the only rational thought she is able to formulate in her mind in between bouts of pleasure is just how much time he must have spent last night reinforcing the table brackets to have them hold up as well as they are.

But even in her heightened state of arousal, she is perceptive to the nuanced changes in his behavior; he is working harder now, his brow furrowed, his thrusts more deliberate. She can sense his heart pounding in his ribcage, can feel the shortening of his breath against her throat, can even hear the silent gasps of ecstasy he tries so hard to conceal from her. She does what she can to temper his fervor and draw out this symphony of theirs, but the threads of her resolve have already frayed nearly beyond repair; her hands move without thinking, clutching at his lower back, urging his hips ever onward, scratching at the perfect porcelain skin that bears the scars of the royal onus bequeathed upon him.

Another change occurs; his quiet pants no longer leave his mouth, and instead he is is exhaling forcefully through his nose, like a beast of burden struggling under the weight of a heavy load. His movements grow more erratic as well, and his fingers have returned to her hands—not to pin them down against her will, but to clutch at her palms in desperation. He is close—she can  _feel_  it—and his mouth parts slightly as a single word escapes his lips. “I—”

She knows he will slow down if she lets him, so she  _doesn’t_  let him, because she wants his heat inside of her, wants his body to fill every inch of her own; the thought of losing everything they have built together in this moment is a betrayal the likes of which even the Infernian would not lower himself to. So she silences his reticence with a kiss, his waist captured between her legs in a vice grip, and lets her own cries of exhilaration work their wicked magic in his ears.

She can’t read his thoughts, but she can decipher the clues he leaves behind on the planes of his chiseled face; his jaw is clenched, his brow glistening with the efforts of his exertion, his eyes moving rapidly beneath his closed eyelids. And she can feel his warmth spreading inside of her just below her abdomen with each final drive of his hips, until the twitching in his muscles eventually subsides altogether and his he leans to rest his cheek upon her breasts. She holds his head in her arms and gazes down at his peaceful form; even in his state of utter exhaustion, she notices him shift his weight to his forearms so as not to crush her under the mass of his own body.

Silence falls over the apartment once more; a moment passes before he pushes himself upright from the table and offers her a hand. She sits up slowly and waits for the dizziness in her head to pass, then slides off the table and into the nearest chair before her knees have the chance to give out from under her.

She doesn’t even have to look up at him to know he has reverted back to his usual, aloof self; she simply takes the blouse he is holding out to her, reaches for her pants that have long since been discarded on the floor, and dresses herself quietly. This is how it always is; brief instances of passion smothered between long bouts of cordial formality. His remoteness could be downright suffocating at times, but it’s the bargain she’s made with him, the price she must pay for a small sliver of happiness.

The strategist retrieves his Crown City Chronicle from the table and resumes his seat across from her, Ebony in hand. She half-expects to glance over and see him already dressed—perhaps the ability the Lucian prince has bestowed upon him to summon weapons out of thin air extends to his wardrobe—but with the exception of his glasses that have once again taken up occupancy on his face, he is, notably, still sans clothing.

“What ever did happen to your clothes?” she asks, frowning as she buttons her tunic.

He crosses one knee over the other and sips nonchalantly at his Ebony, as if reading the morning paper and drinking coffee in the nude is as unremarkable as breathing. “I told you, it’s a mystery. Even to me.”

She can’t resist indulging in a smile; parting ways with him is always bittersweet, but she welcomes his effort at making light of things. “Well, you better find them before your trip. I’m sure Gladio won’t appreciate your naked physique quite the same way I do.”

“Indeed,” he says, his attention buried in his newspaper.

As she pulls on her trousers, she pauses. “Ignis?”

“Yes?”

“I know we have an agreement in place, but…”

“Go on. Spit it out.”

“I think I might miss you, is all.”

He raises an eyebrow behind his spectacles and holds her gaze for a long moment; then he shrugs and lifts his newspaper again to his nose. “Never fear, Darling. I’m sure everything will go quite smoothly in Altissia. I’ll be back in Insomnia before you know it.”


End file.
